Months ago, I wrote about the Department of Homeland Security’s concerns about chemistry sets. (You know, for kids.) Well, it seems the push to make the world child-safe (or perhaps not legally actionable?) continues.
Reader Donn Young points me to this story from Wired about government crackdowns on companies catering to garage chemistry enthusiasts. Donn also shares a story of his own:
Growing up, two friends and I had a chemistry ‘club’ centered around our chemistry sets and ‘labs’ in our basements. My friend’s mother, who was a chemist at Battelle Memorial Institute, would give us short monthly talks about famous chemists, have us do an experiment based on some important principle, and as the grand finale [which kept the interest of 11-year olds] gave a demo of some greatly exothermic reaction – the loud noises, colored fire, billowing smoke, and smell were impressive – in a time of no smoke detectors! It resulted in two of us getting degrees in chemistry [her own son became an investment banker – go figure]. We all held her in awe because she could get us chemicals that were really strong oxidizers, powerful acids, or toxic [and we all survived because she taught us lab safety as well – goggles, gloves & a plexiglas shield saved my eyesight when my hydrogen generator blew up – I was curious to see what color a pure hydrogen flame would burn].
The current movement to squelch a kid’s curiosity in a basement lab with a chemistry set doesn’t seem to bode well for the future of the field
Given my present position as ScienceBlogs resident chemist, I ought to weigh in on this.